Google Doodle: Related to Halloween?

Those of you who fired up your Google Search page this morning were met with a new "Google Doodle."  The image was of a UFO over rural houses while three-legged saucer creatures walked in the background.

This was the "reveal" to a first Google Doodle that appeared back in early September.  Featuring a UFO flying over a Google-word crop circle, the picture sparked a flurry of surmising and code crackers trying to figure out what the mysterious logo meant.

Today, the link to the doodle, takes you to a search for "H.G. Wells."  And a little digging uncovers that today is the classic science-fiction writer's birthday.

So how does all this relate to Halloween?

I'm glad you asked.  I would have rambled forever.

Well, one of Wells' best known works is the sci-fi masterpiece War of the Worlds.
On the night before Halloween (Bam!  See?), October 30th 1938, Writer/Director/Actor Orson Welles (no relation) and his Mercury Theatre Company staged an adaptation of the Wells (no relation) classic (no relation) LIVE on CBS radio.

As the company staged it as a live news program reporting on the events of a martian landing, many took the info to be real and the broadcast incited a panic for those who missed the disclaimer of the entertainment program.
You can read more about how the whole situation played out HERE on strangehorizons.com and you can get the classic broadcast to listen to many places on the internet like HERE.